KISU Taps 360 Systems As Key Teaching Resource

POCATELLO, IDAHO—Give students the right instruction and the right tools, and they will flourish. In a collaboration between the professional and educational worlds, these are the guiding principles here at Idaho Public Television and Idaho State University, where broadcasting students are getting a leg up in the industry with broadcast studio-quality, high definition broadcast television equipment to learn in a real-world, hands-on environment.

ISU is the broadcast home for KISUTV, which operates from studio and office facilities located within the Kegel Liberal Arts Building on the university’s campus in Pocatello. It is the East Idaho presence of Idaho Public Television, a statewide, non-commercial broadcast telecommunication system and new media provider that has been serving Idahoans for 50 years.

ISU students work alongside industry professionals during a live telethon production.

GOING BIG IN A SMALL MARKETAlthough our Idaho Falls-Pocatello market ranks 162nd as a Nielsen DMA among 210 U.S. markets, our production facility at KISU-TV is more in line with what one would expect to find in a large market television station. The audio console, production switcher, cameras with remote CCU’s, intercom and router all emulate the environment of larger market television production. It is an efficiently designed facility, with products and technologies that fit the realities of television today, that is, “doing more with less.”

A perfect example of this is 360 Systems’ TSS series multiformat, HD/SD, record and playout video servers used at KISU-TV for teaching television production. Simplicity is key to the 360 Systems TSS Server. As in the professional broadcast world, our instructors and students require powerful features with intuitive and accessible controls. Whether controlling directly via its intuitive GUI, or indirectly from our Ross production switcher, it has been easy to use. It also integrates easily with our Adobe Premiere-based edit lab, making use of Premiere’s ability to pass a completed video to the 360 Systems server with a click of a button.

HANDS-ON TRAININGAt KISU-TV, we put the tools of today into the hands of students with an eye toward making them job-ready now, with an understanding of emerging technologies that will serve their future professional work. Unlike at some schools, ISU’s Communication, Media, and Persuasion program gives its students hands-on-experience with broadcast-quality equipment from their very first year.

The next generation of TV station systems will be IP video-centric, and it is reassuring to know 360 Systems has IP-ready server products, with the TSS IP-2200, offering SMPTE 2022 IP video recording and playout now, with SMPTE 2110 support soon to follow. But, in the meantime, it is critical for ISU students to learn the basics of the production chain—from cameras and sound to the mixing and switching of video sources—to put together a modern, broadcast-quality production. The students who train with pro gear today will be the ones the pros want to hire tomorrow.

With our IdahoPTV and ISU partnership, and established, yet forward-looking companies like 360 Systems, our ISU students will be able to fit right into today’s broadcasting workflows and be ready to move with the industry to IP and other new and exciting variations of the television, video and media technologies we know today.